The present invention relates to transportation trailers having cargo tanks, and more specifically to a viscous product transportation trailer cargo tank.
Transportation trailers are used to carry a variety of products, including viscous products, of both the food-grade and non-food-grade types. However, such products are often difficult to store and transport, and they are often even more problematic to unload. Due to the nature and properties of the product itself, unloading often results in an undesirable amount (often as much as 1% of the total load transported, or even more, of wasted product (i.e., heel) that remains in the tank following unloading.
The interior of trailers must be cleaned thoroughly between loads of excess heel (product left over following unloading of the tank). Current solutions require drivers or other service personnel to manually clean heel from the trailer tank. Such cleaning is time-consuming, and thus costly, and moreover, it can be dangerous since such cleaning requires the service personnel to climb on top of the trailer and enter the tank via a service manhole. This is a process that can result in injuries. Moreover, if the material being transported is a non-food-grade material, and in particular a hazardous material, the product itself can be very dangerous (e.g., fumes, flammability, etc.) to the cleaning person(s).
Thus, it would be desirable to provide for the unloading of viscous materials from cargo tank trailers in a manner that reduces or minimizes product waste, safely (e.g., with the service personnel accomplishing unloading at ground level) and in an economical fashion.